Thai Education Min to launch training to improve English teachers

[Eddy B]

I am working currently as a teacher and if I am released because of this scheme I will simply sit back and watch the carnage. I make enough to survive now with only my private students so maybe this will be a god send, as more students will want to learn. I can just stay at home and teach to my own schedule.

[arrowsdawdle]

The phrase - "An exercise in futility" comes to mind.

If by futility you mean that anyone who has any familiarity at all with Thai education and culture knows that with a specified amount of baht he can circumvent any testing.....Amen!

[cgphuket]

"in cooperation with the British Council." For anyone who has ever seen their job postings, they only recognize UK education and qualification. Time for all non-British English teachers to go home. No more good jobs for you.

[GAZZPA]

How about employing native English speakers to teach English, surely that would be easier and faster then trying to bring current English speaking Thais up to standard. It would ready the next generation for the Asean agreement and plant a decent level of English proficiency in Thailand.

Oh wait that idea was scrapped and the native speaking English teachers are to be sent packing...

[connda]

Another project destined for failure: The Blind Leading The Blind. Propagating broken English ad-infinitum for generations to come. As always, the 50 'best' teachers will be selected based on status, family-standing, and money.

Here's a better idea. Require native Thai teachers with their Masters Degree in English or Education to take two full years of English language training from qualified Native English Speakers, or require them to attend 'immersion' English language courses in English speaking countries. No exceptions. Hell, that makes way too much sense, now doesn't it.

The ministry's idea may get off the ground, but will have a Hindenburg ending.

hith-hindenburg--E.jpeg

I know this sounds crazy but, why not have an English speaking radio station and an English speaking TV station, you know, like they had a couple of years ago! Listening to the BBC is no help at all, the presenters speak way too fast! Believe it or not CNN has a much better set of presenters!

Some of my students have watched American TV with Thai subs. Worked for them pretty well. I wish our local station, which plays plenty of American movies, but unfortunately duded in Thai with Thai subs. I wish they'd change them to English subs. That would help me.

[DogNo1]

This topic has previously been done to death.

[connda]

The best 50 will train the next group, inspiring stuff but woefully lacking. Having been very much involved in teaching Thai teachers English as part of a government push to use English in the maths and science classes it's doomed to the same end. Who can blame an old teacher who is on cruse control to a pension or a teacher who has no interest in learning a foreign language. Yes they will attend and give every indication that they are trying but at the end of the program they will have gained little to nothing even the ones who try and do want to speak English will simply not use it in class out of fear that they will get it wrong or a student might speak it better.

There is only one way to break the circle and that is to employ good first language English speaking teachers to teach English, Maths, and science in schools until the first generation students start to enter the job market. Then offer these students a bonus to go into teaching using English. Only then will the circle be broken. But this would need a real commitment not just words.

I taught a 30 hour "Teach the Teachers" course to Pratom teachers in Isaan. I had one major success. Probably half the students in Nakhon Ratchasima province now know how to do The Chicken Dance. They are probably all still pronouncing Rs as Ls, and Ls and Ns, but da*m, they can do The Chicken Dance.

If you don't know The Chicken Dance, crawl out from under your rock and check this link:

https://youtu.be/4xmV5uHWNag

And the Hokey Pokey was more popular that attempting to aspirate Ts, Ks, Ps, and Gs at the end of words, no less understand when to use an S or Z sound for plural nouns and third-person plurals.

If you don't know The Hokey Pokey, crawl out from under your rock again and check this link:

https://youtu.be/4EnaAFyrcQM

Now like Thai Pratom teachers, you can ignore the English lessons and do naught but play. TIT My take on Thai teaching philosophy is that children shouldn't be burdened with learning, but allowed to do nothing but play.

Having done the same sort of course here in Phrae, only with Mathiyom, I'm a little confused about the part that singing and dance play in teaching English? While children like to sing and dance where does it fit for teachers to do it in a "train the trainer" course? Money for jam eh!!

Warmers TPI, Warmers!!! Which should only take 5 minutes at the beginning of the class to get them up and moving. Unfortunately they over-appealed to my class of teachers who got pre-occupied with the freaking Chicken Dance. The lesson objective was to show the teachers various methods of using warmers at the start of a class, and then have them work together to brain-storm and develop warmers relevant to their own classes in their own schools. That lesson devolved a little bit. I got it back on track by the end of the week. <grin>

I taught maybe 120+ teachers over three years. I pity the Thai education system. A lot of those people are completely set in their ways and ain't gonna change. I taught English for 3 year here, but I've got another 4 year teaching computer electronics for the US Navy and General Electric, and 7 years teaching snow skiing. As a teacher I always evaluated what I taught and the results I got on a daily basis. Thai teachers just don't seem to give a rip. My take on it? You can not save those who already know it all. So I said, "Screw it.", and I retired. I'm done with it. But I'll still talk about it, and if I meet a young teacher who really is open to different teaching methodologies, I'm happy to help. But finding Thai teachers open to change is like finding hens teeth or diamonds in the Ping River. Good luck!

Warmers! Lol. If you don't use them you should. Get's your class up and going, and ready to learn.

Edited November 18, 2015 by connda

[connda]

This topic has previously been done to death.

Let's beat on it some more.

It's a relevant topic if your a person who actually cares about the well-being of the next couple of generations of Thai youth. This country has a problem with it's educational system whether it thinks so or not. They ain't going to change without outside opinions and less than subtle nudges in the right direction. Think nationally; act locally. Don't be a pessimist; be a realist. You may not be able to fix the system, but you da*m well can help change it. So it ain't been done to death yet. Flip it over and cook the other side. Think outside the entrenched paradigms.

Edited November 18, 2015 by connda

[connda]

"in cooperation with the British Council." For anyone who has ever seen their job postings, they only recognize UK education and qualification. Time for all non-British English teachers to go home. No more good jobs for you.

The problem being is that Brits can be almost unintelligible to their students - heavy accents.

US and Canadian teachers have a clear and generally unaccented sound to their pronunciations. Am I biased? Darn straight I am. Why? Because student admit that they can understand Yanks and Canucks better than Brits. Sorry. I just deal with reality and I don't care about stepping on a few toes. If you're a Brit, try learning a non-regional accent. I know Danes who can talk like they come from Southern California. I can speak in about 5 different US dialects, or no dialect at all. That's my teaching voice. Brits should develop a "teaching voice". Try ditching your accents, or pick up some new ones. Break the old worn-out paradigms.

[gk10002000]

Look, seminars, teaching short courses, etc. are all useful. But I submit that the a simple outline, using everyday examples is all that is needed. native English speakers have long since forgotten what the passive voice definition is, what a participle is, etc. Yet they still speak and write well and use good grammar. We native speakers rarely make plurality mistakes, rarely make tense mistakes, I went, She will go, I am going, etc. There are literally hundreds of thousands of well speaking English speakers around the world that would gladly live or work in Thailand given any thing reasonable. There are many fairly relatively young professionals, engineers like myself that would to it. I don't need a lot of money. I love Thailand and have been there over a dozen times. Give me an easy visa and work permit process. Give me or somebody like me enough pay for decent room and food and local medical insurance. We have knowledge and expertise that we can impart to Thais.

[gk10002000]

"in cooperation with the British Council." For anyone who has ever seen their job postings, they only recognize UK education and qualification. Time for all non-British English teachers to go home. No more good jobs for you.

The problem being is that Brits can be almost unintelligible to their students - heavy accents.

US and Canadian teachers have a clear and generally unaccented sound to their pronunciations. Am I biased? Darn straight I am. Why? Because student admit that they can understand Yanks and Canucks better than Brits. Sorry. I just deal with reality and I don't care about stepping on a few toes. If you're a Brit, try learning a non-regional accent. I know Danes who can talk like they come from Southern California. I can speak in about 5 different US dialects, or no dialect at all. That's my teaching voice. Brits should develop a "teaching voice". Try ditching your accents, or pick up some new ones. Break the old worn-out paradigms.

In general I agree with you about accents. I am an American, born and raised in Rhode Island. Those of you in the USA would pick up my New England accent right away, especially as I "park my car" or any other words with that "aaar" sound in them. I can only imagine how my English sounds to Thais, or how my poor Thai sounds to Thais with my funny accent!

[whitemouse]

Well I would really like to see the 6 week program and what it entails. If it has anything that resembles previous attempts of grammar, grammar and more grammar, then it is doomed before it starts.

I never taught English in Thailand, just maintenance training to the RTA. I truly do pity any English teachers, if their experiences were anything like mine.

I gave it up a few years back, after being involved with the RTA off & on for over 10 years.

My last contract was 9 months long. I finished the contract because I said I would, though I was almost ready to go find a tall building with a low balcony.

Never again.

You'd think this new approach to teach languages to young Thais is a comedy bit, a sketch from late night show.. but this is real. And this is not some village school board, these people run the country.

There is a thread in Visa section about the new Multiple Entry Visa, people are puzzled, people are discussing it, and trying to find a rational behind it. But guys, don't you agree we should know better than to look for logic? I guess it is in our farang nature to look for reasons and logic. We think too much lol.

This news bit here is a perfect example why looking for basic common sense is waste of time. Things here happen randomly, almost like weather, except weather can be predicted more or less accurately.

Take rational and reason, and then do the opposite - that's Thai way! It's random, worse than random, cos randomly you'd be bound to get some things right!

[brewsterbudgen]

The phrase - "An exercise in futility" comes to mind.

but not for the British Council, it seems. They will make money out of it, again.

Good business!

[waldroj]

One really has to question the motives and morals of these people (almost all of whom received their education overseas).

It almost as if the so called "elite" are making it their life's work to keep the proletariat suppressed and denied any opportunity to rise above their station.

[DavisH]

And how long will it take the new Thai trainers to train the trainees? A complete lack of english takes YEARS to address. Let's not even pretend that foreign teachers are not needed in the short to medium term. Maybe after 30 years....but then the whole culture of learning needs to change - most kids learn here get a piece of paper and do not care one iota of the knowledge gained.

[JAG]

One really has to question the motives and morals of these people (almost all of whom received their education overseas).

It almost as if the so called "elite" are making it their life's work to keep the proletariat suppressed and denied any opportunity to rise above their station.

Yes...

[Lunchbob]

What exactly is the British Council?

British cultural representation. A throwback to the world's greatest empire.

Right. I thought to myself, why would a political organization be hired to teach English? There is a reason.

[petedk]

The best 50 will train the next group, inspiring stuff but woefully lacking. Having been very much involved in teaching Thai teachers English as part of a government push to use English in the maths and science classes it's doomed to the same end. Who can blame an old teacher who is on cruse control to a pension or a teacher who has no interest in learning a foreign language. Yes they will attend and give every indication that they are trying but at the end of the program they will have gained little to nothing even the ones who try and do want to speak English will simply not use it in class out of fear that they will get it wrong or a student might speak it better.

There is only one way to break the circle and that is to employ good first language English speaking teachers to teach English, Maths, and science in schools until the first generation students start to enter the job market. Then offer these students a bonus to go into teaching using English. Only then will the circle be broken. But this would need a real commitment not just words.

I taught a 30 hour "Teach the Teachers" course to Pratom teachers in Isaan. I had one major success. Probably half the students in Nakhon Ratchasima province now know how to do The Chicken Dance. They are probably all still pronouncing Rs as Ls, and Ls and Ns, but da*m, they can do The Chicken Dance.

If you don't know The Chicken Dance, crawl out from under your rock and check this link:

https://youtu.be/4xmV5uHWNag

And the Hokey Pokey was more popular that attempting to aspirate Ts, Ks, Ps, and Gs at the end of words, no less understand when to use an S or Z sound for plural nouns and third-person plurals.

If you don't know The Hokey Pokey, crawl out from under your rock again and check this link:

https://youtu.be/4EnaAFyrcQM

Now like Thai Pratom teachers, you can ignore the English lessons and do naught but play. TIT My take on Thai teaching philosophy is that children shouldn't be burdened with learning, but allowed to do nothing but play.

Having done the same sort of course here in Phrae, only with Mathiyom, I'm a little confused about the part that singing and dance play in teaching English? While children like to sing and dance where does it fit for teachers to do it in a "train the trainer" course? Money for jam eh!!

Warmers TPI, Warmers!!! Which should only take 5 minutes at the beginning of the class to get them up and moving. Unfortunately they over-appealed to my class of teachers who got pre-occupied with the freaking Chicken Dance. The lesson objective was to show the teachers various methods of using warmers at the start of a class, and then have them work together to brain-storm and develop warmers relevant to their own classes in their own schools. That lesson devolved a little bit. I got it back on track by the end of the week. <grin>

I taught maybe 120+ teachers over three years. I pity the Thai education system. A lot of those people are completely set in their ways and ain't gonna change. I taught English for 3 year here, but I've got another 4 year teaching computer electronics for the US Navy and General Electric, and 7 years teaching snow skiing. As a teacher I always evaluated what I taught and the results I got on a daily basis. Thai teachers just don't seem to give a rip. My take on it? You can not save those who already know it all. So I said, "Screw it.", and I retired. I'm done with it. But I'll still talk about it, and if I meet a young teacher who really is open to different teaching methodologies, I'm happy to help. But finding Thai teachers open to change is like finding hens teeth or diamonds in the Ping River. Good luck!

Warmers! Lol. If you don't use them you should. Get's your class up and going, and ready to learn.

I have taught many conversation courses to Thai teachers at different schools and universities.

The courses were mainly well tested conversation games and activities. Normal students at the university love them and even sometimes don't want to finish the lessons.

The teachers had only one aim - to finish as quickly as possible so they often shouted out in Thai (instead of one on one conversations in English). They copied the answers from each other, and some just sat quietly using Facebook on their mobiles.

When I complained and told them that the idea was to practice conversation skills they just laughed and said that this was the Thai way.

I am bi-lingual and I learnt the other language by speaking non-stop for 3 hours a day and learning only basic grammar. After 6 months I was able to have reasonable conversations in that language. I always explain that to Thai students (and teachers) and I must admit the students seem to grasp the idea, but the teachers? ...... never.

The mentality of the Thai teachers has to be changed first and I can't see this training program succeeding.

[brewsterbudgen]

What exactly is the British Council?

British cultural representation. A throwback to the world's greatest empire.

Right. I thought to myself, why would a political organization be hired to teach English? There is a reason.

The British Council, of course, is entirely non-political!

[Lunchbob]

What exactly is the British Council?

British cultural representation. A throwback to the world's greatest empire.

Right. I thought to myself, why would a political organization be hired to teach English? There is a reason.

The British Council, of course, is entirely non-political!

Have you read their about or history page at the website? Its sole reason to exist is politics, not language teaching.

[Pormax]

My wife teaches private English lessons, plus she helps her students with their other subjects if asked. She is constantly asking me what are the teachers doing at the schools, as her students seem to not even know basic things !!

Example, yesterday a 15 yr old didn't know the months of the year, in Thai, but expected to know them in English ?

Yes you are 100% correct there. My wife's neice who is almost 18yrs old and due to leave high school for University next April has been taught English from me.

Have done many hours with her, but progress is very slow and I would put this down to her as having a fairly low IQ and partially like most Thai children being lazy.

Anyway her 16 year old cousin came to stay, so I though why not try and help her at the same time, so started of with days of the week and months of the year. She also did not know the order of months in Thai.

My neice can understand a fair amount of English due to living with my wife and I and yet a friend of her's, same age same class, who knows no English at all got an end of term pass mark of 3.0 out of 4.0 compared to my neice who got 2.2.

[DavidBonnie]

Lot of nonsense talked here by non-professional people.

I am afraid to say that the idea of a 'teaching voice' or the more common term, grading on'es language to suit the audience is part of a professional teacher's toolkit.

As far as a British accent is concerned; while American English is an adaption of english it most definitely has an accent. I am guessing that the comments made about British accents were based on listening to British teachers in Thailand or perhaps just bigotry? England is the home of the original mother tongue and is also a home to ideas about culture and manners, at least in English speaking countries. Hence the British Council's mission.

If a teacher cannot be understood, then they are ineffective as teachers, are they not? I have never heard of this being the case in many years of teaching.

The problem in Thai education would be solved if instead of training Thais in a nonsensical fashion the ministry embraced the idea of employing foreign teachers from a range of native speaking countries who were actually qualified teachers in their own countries. A teacher with a PGCE and at least 2 years of experience is a completely different animal to a TEFL'er who has no prior knowledge of the profession prior to arriving in Thailand.

Were such teachers only allowed to work in Thailand and an equatable salary paid them for a minimum contract of 3 years, standards would improve dramatically.

Such a move however requires time, money and effort. Most international schools even in the African continent seem to know this.

[Jeremy50]

Our school recently advertised for an English native speaker with a monthly salary of 40,000 baht. A man came for an interview and the next day started work. He did his work so ell it made all us Thai teachers look lazy. In midterm he went on holiday to Phuket, with his young Thai wife and daughter, we went to Isaan to see our mum. He's bought a new motorcycle now. We hate him, but the owners and parents at school love him. We wind him up everyday when the owners go out and spread false rumors about him. It worked, he lost his cool one day when we all wound him up and he walked out of the school in front of the parents. He got sacked and we all celebrated over somtam. Next day the school owners had another farang being interviewed. He won,t last long, will he girls, ha, ha, ha.

Unfortunately, a very accurate description of many a government school staff room. And why the obsequious 'wai happy' types, many with a 'hidden agenda' [think the worst] stay the longest in government school jobs.

[dominique355]

My wife teaches private English lessons, plus she helps her students with their other subjects if asked. She is constantly asking me what are the teachers doing at the schools, as her students seem to not even know basic things !!

Example, yesterday a 15 yr old didn't know the months of the year, in Thai, but expected to know them in English ?

The answer to your question is relatively easy: Most Thai English teacher don't speak English ... at all.

Only a small minority has actually ever learned and/or studied English.

I met once an "English teacher" up country and asked him why he was teaching English when obviously he could speak English at all. He was a sports teacher. He explained that once during PE he was counting in English: one, two, three... The principal walked by and heard him. The next day he was requested to teach English. True story.

[dominique355]

My above post has a typing error but I don't know how to edit it on my iPhone. It should read:" ... why he was teaching English when obviously he couldn't speak English at all."

[brewsterbudgen]

What exactly is the British Council?

British cultural representation. A throwback to the world's greatest empire.

Right. I thought to myself, why would a political organization be hired to teach English? There is a reason.

The British Council, of course, is entirely non-political!

Have you read their about or history page at the website? Its sole reason to exist is politics, not language teaching.

Exporting British cultural values, dear boy.

[Balance]

When I first arrived here 4 years ago a Thai friend asked me to come to her English class and talk with the students; a visiting native speaker. There were 15 or so 16 year olds. Only two of them would say a word in English unless asked a question and then most would not respond. On the second visit, I started by asking who thought learning English was important to them, personally. The same two who who could speak some English raised their hands, no one else. I then went around the room and asked them what they were going to do when they left high school. Tourism, police, army, don't know were the responses. No one was going to University (I later learned that non of them could afford it). I had learned that the Tourist Police get paid a differential for the fact that they can speak rudimentary English. I asked if they could get jobs that pay more money if they knew English. The same two knew this; no one else.

The article is correct; Thais have little to no interest in learning English. The first thing that has to be done is to put English much more front and center. Streaming English subtitles on Thai news channels would be a good start, then move onto the soap operas, then all labeling on groceries and government signs. In other words, MAKE ENGLISH MORE VISIBLE TO the general population. If people see it, they will believe that there is a reason they are seeing it.

The problem with the suggestion, of course, is that politically this is a non starter and the reason is that if more people knew English, they would have access to more information about the world and understand that there are more options out there. That is dangerous source of instability and "unhappiness" and will not happen.

The Education Minister has a tough job.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Balance

[trogers]

What exactly is the British Council?

British cultural representation. A throwback to the world's greatest empire.

And the British culture would be preserved in their overseas British Councils while the culture in their homeland gets diluted into non-existence by migrants...